


Alone

by sponsormusings



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Everlark Week Challenge, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-05
Updated: 2012-10-05
Packaged: 2017-11-15 17:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/529751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sponsormusings/pseuds/sponsormusings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everlark, in the style of Tarzan and Jane.</p><p>Submission for Prompts in Panem, October 2012, Day One.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alone

He’d been alone for so long.

  
He’d never been lonely, but he had known there was something different between himself and those who had raised him for a number of years. Despite his attempts to be like them, he always felt a little out of place, a little like he didn’t belong. It wasn’t his surroundings – that he felt completely at one with – it was more how he felt inside when he looked at himself in the reflection of the river, and when he compared himself to them.

  
It had taken the discovery of the cabin in the jungle for him to really understand that he was not the same as his family, and he never would be.

  
Living wild in the jungle, he spent years developing his skills as a hunter, becoming widely recognised among his tribe for his abilities. It had led to friction between the tribe leader and himself, and eventually he had to fight for his life when the leader’s jealousy of his skills and knowledge became so all-consuming that he was attacked. He had taken the life of his opponent, and in doing so, become the new leader of the tribe, the King of the Jungle. It was not a duty he had taken lightly.

  
As years passed, he spent long periods of time in the cabin, learning more about those like him, learning what they did, how they lived. He taught himself to read, to understand the language in the books left behind. He learned what it was like to be human.

  
But he longed for a mate.

  
He’d never thought about it before, had always been content with his life in its simplicity. But that had all changed when the strangers had washed up on the shore on the fringes of the jungle. It seemed for the first few weeks he did nothing but save them from each other, and from the wild jungle animals that roamed. He spent time playing practical jokes on the marooned people, although he had soon grown weary of it, determining that they were boring and tiresome. Well, almost all of them. The woman with the bark brown hair and deep grey eyes was another story. He liked to watch her, watch her scowl at the other people, hitch up her skirt to trounce through the jungle, dig up the edible plants with her bare hands, not worrying about dirt or grime or mud like the other woman in her party did. Liked to watch her as she carefully set traps to capture small jungle animals for food to feed her group. He remembered the first time he watched her, had really watched her.

  
_She had travelled into the tree line, away from her companions. She had carried a small skin of water, and once she’d gone so far she stopped, settling on a fallen tree log and slowly unbuttoning the high necked blouse that she wore. He stared curiously from his place high in the trees. He felt no shame in watching her._

  
_The items she wore were foreign to him. The top part was strange – it covered her from just below her chin, and had long sleeves all the way down to her hands. He had no idea how she climbed trees in it. He’d watched as she had slid the blouse from her arms, leaving her only in a camisole with thin straps and edged in soft material that looked so flimsy it seemed it wouldn’t survive a hunt. He eyed her closer now, a strange feeling building in his chest, a buzz flickering through his brain. She took the water from the skin, and washed down her arms and neck, dampening her skin and washing the dirt that had collected on her, and it intensified the strange feelings he was experiencing. He continued to watch her, his curiosity and interest only being piqued the more she ghosted her hands over the skin of her arms, and later, her legs._

  
From then, he longed for her. He loved her.

  
****

  
The group had become used to his presence as he faded in and out of the jungle. He never showed himself, but continued to supply them with meat to supplement what the brown-haired girl captured. He saved them from multiple perilous situations, but never stayed long enough to make anything more than a passing impression.

  
It was a day like any other really, when things changed.

  
He had been hiding near their camp, the bow and quiver he had pilfered from a tribe of native humans who had settled nearby, slung over his shoulder. His thoughts had been drifting to her, as they had been almost daily, when the scream pierced the relative silence of the jungle. He knew it was her. It cut deep inside, filling him with a terror he hadn’t felt before, nor did he understand. He wanted to protect her. He needed to protect her. He sprinted into the depths of the jungle, following the sounds of her screams, their sharpness punctuated by the birds that echoed the noise. Then he saw him.

  
His replacement, Terkoz. The new king.

  
He had already relinquished leadership of his tribe, instead choosing solitude, and a new king had been appointed in his stead. He knew that Terkoz had been a fierce and angry leader, and had already been deposed by others in the tribe.  
It seemed he thought she should be the first woman in his new harem.

  
He finally caught sight of them swinging through the trees, and could see her valiantly thumping her legs and arms against Terkoz’s bulk as he carried her tucked up under his arm. It wouldn’t do her any good, not with Terkoz’s strength, but he could admire her efforts. He continued to follow them, leaping from tree to tree, vine to vine, until he saw Terkoz drop to the earth, dumping the woman in a heap on the ground, her long brown hair free of its confines and flowing wildly over her shoulders. He glanced at her quickly, then turned his attention to the angry ape, whose burly hairy chest rose and fell with every angry bellow he released.

  
****

  
She watched as man and beast fought each other, their grunts and groans sounding both human and animalistic at the same time. She stood, her body braced, a large branch clutched in her hands like she was Babe Ruth, just in case the ape came for her again. She wouldn’t be ill-prepared this time. But they fought and fought and fought, and she couldn’t look away.

  
She couldn’t look away from the man who had come to save her life.

  
She knew he wouldn’t harm her – she was aware that he was the man who had been leaving meat for her group. The man who had saved a number of her companions on multiple occasions, their witlessness and stupidity leading them into ridiculous situations that they couldn’t get out of themselves. So she wasn’t scared of him.

  
But watching him now, she was aware of him. Like she hadn’t been before.  
It seemed like hours later, but he finally defeated the ape, his body bruised and dirty and scarred. He turned to her immediately, and her breath caught as she finally got her first proper look at him.

  
He was so tall and built and strong, his sleek muscles sheened with sweat from exertion. Those muscles defined his torso, and rippled in his biceps as he pushed the ape aside. His taut sun-kissed skin stood out in sharp contrast to the smears of dirt that covered him. His blonde hair waved across his forehead, and rested upon his shoulders. But it was his eyes, his eyes, and their bright cornflower blue that she couldn’t look away from. They held her gaze, and she felt a shiver run down her spine. She broke away, then made the mistake of looking at his body again.

  
The sight of the man dressed in a simple loincloth that only just covered his modesty sent a deep surge of lust running through her.

  
He strode towards her, and before she could think twice she leapt to her feet, wrapping her arms around his neck and murmuring her thanks. He pulled away slightly and looked down at her, his blue eyes deepening, and she felt her heartbeat increase, her stomach quiver. Then his lips were on hers, and she was melting, melting into his arms as he gripped her tighter, pulling her into his body, their planes and angles and curves aligning perfectly. Their kisses were fiery and frantic, neither having experienced the hunger that was overtaking them.

  
Suddenly she realised what she was doing, and pushed him away, embarrassed. She had never acted that way with anyone before, certainly not some jungle man. She simply wasn’t interested in relationships. She could see the hurt in his eyes, but didn’t know what to say. He set his jaw and his eyes clouded over, before he quickly reached forward, wrapped his large strong hands around her hips and tossed her over his shoulder. She yelped in surprise, her hair brushing the backs of his thighs and her face resting against his back. From this angle she had a good view of his firm buttocks, and she was embarrassed that she was even looking. His arms banded around her legs, holding her in place, and she couldn’t get free.

  
Her heart thudded loudly in her ears, but wasn’t from terror or fear.

  
It was from excitement.

  
****

  
He carried her over his shoulder as he loped through the jungle, but he wasn’t winded. She was light as a feather, the curves of her body fitting easily over his shoulder. He couldn’t keep his thoughts off the knowledge that she was pressed up against his back, firm and snug. He wasn’t really sure what to make of what he’d been feeling, other than it felt good, almost painfully good. He hadn’t even known what he was doing before, when he held her tightly in his arms and crushed his mouth to hers. It just seemed like what he was meant to do. An instinct, one he’d never felt so strongly.

  
Eventually he found a clearing that would be suitable to set camp up in, and placed her on the ground, beginning to collect palm fronds and vines and wide thick branches to set up a makeshift shelter. She simply stood and watched him, her arms wrapped tightly around her waist. Slowly but surely the curve of a canopy appeared as he draped the leaves and vinery across a low-lying branch. The branches he placed upright around the edges, helping to keep the structure upright.

  
He looked over at her, seeming so small and fragile in her torn and dirty clothing. He gestured towards the shelter, and waited until she stepped inside. She sat, and he turned and began to collect fruit from nearby trees. He was aware of her watching his every move, but each time he turned towards her, she averted her gaze.

  
After he had collected enough he returned to the shelter, placing the fruit on the ground, and holding one of the pieces out to her. She smiled, and gestured for him to join her.

  
He did so, and simply stared. He didn’t think it would make her uncomfortable, didn’t realise she might find it off-putting. But her cheeks flushed with red, her eyes dropped to the ground, and he wondered what he’d done wrong. They sat in silence for a time, as the sun began to set, the rays of light casting shadows through the trees. Finally, she spoke to him, pointing to her chest, then his.

  
“My name is Katniss. Who are you?” He could understand her, but he didn’t know what to say. He could read words, could understand some of them when spoken by others, but still hadn’t mastered how to say them. He grunted softly, and grabbed a stick, copying down the letters he had seen in some of the papers in the cabin, after he realised they related to him.

  
PEETA.

  
She smiled at him, and he could see how when she did, the grey in her eyes seemed so much brighter.

  
“Hello Peeta. Thank you for saving my life.” He nodded, unsure of what else to say. He stayed quiet and watched as realisation dawned on her face. She leant forward and rested the palm of her hand on his bare chest, and the feel of her skin on his made his heart stutter. He looked up into her eyes, and he was surprised to see something flicker in them. He didn’t know what it was. “Thank you.” She whispered to him again.

  
****

  
His gaze was unrelenting, the piercing blue eyes locking her in place and not letting go. No proper man back in America stared at her so blatantly, but she wasn’t ashamed to admit that she liked it. It embarrassed her, but she liked it.  
The smoothness of his skin under her palm was a surprise – she’d expected it to feel rough and dirty, befitting someone who lived in such a remote and untamed land. Her gaze flickered down to where her hand rested on his chest, and caught sight of the gold chain and locket that hung around his neck. She grasped it in her land, carefully studying the intricate flower pattern on it, its delicacy out of place against him. She popped the latch on the locket, and caught his sharp intake of breath. She looked up to see the surprise in his eyes, and he stared at the pictures it contained. He couldn’t take his eyes off them. Judging by the resemblance in them, she could only assume these were his parents.  
She looked back up at him to see a faint sheen of moisture film his eyes as he stared at the pictures. He carefully took the locket back out of her hand, closed it, and removed it from around his neck. Before she realised what was happening, he was placing it over her own head, until the locket hung against her blouse. She couldn’t take this from him, something obviously so precious, and reached up to remove it, but he stopped her with a single glance. The sorrow in his eyes was more than she could bear, and she leant forward, wrapping her arms around his shoulders again. His own banded around her waist, pulling her close until she was ensconced on his lap. Despite the fact that he was a stranger, that she hardly knew him, and that he hadn’t even uttered one word to her, she felt safe. And welcomed.

  
And wanted.

  
She held a hand to his cheek, tracing the hard, strong line of his jaw; watched his eyes close and felt the muscles in his arms tense. She wondered if he’d ever been this close to a woman before – or even seen one this close - and she thought it was highly likely that he hadn’t.

  
She pulled herself closer, so that her chest brushed against his, and raised her other hand to the nape of his neck, twisting her fingers in the tangled waves of his hair. She locked gazes with him again, and the desire in his eyes was more than matched by what she knew was showing in her own. His fingers gripped the back of her shirt, balling the material in the palms of his hands. Their mouths met in hot, wet kisses that burned and fed what they were making the other feel. She pulled away to pepper kisses along his jaw, glancing at his face, and realised. She could see the confusion in his eyes, mixed with want and need, and she knew he was perplexed about what was happening, what he was feeling.  
She slid from his lap, and stretched out on the ground, lying on her side. He settled alongside her, and she knew nothing should happen between them. Not tonight. Not their first night, and not when he seemed so obviously innocent.  
So she rested her head on his chest, felt his heartbeat under her ear. His arms came around her again, and she settled into their warmth. She felt the faint pressure of his lips against her hair, and smiled at the tenderness of it.  
She fell asleep in the arms of the king of the jungle.

  
****

  
He returned her to his cabin the next morning, her arms clinging around his neck as he carried her through the jungle. He knew he had to leave – he rarely stayed in the cabin for very long unless he was reading - but her eyes were begging him to stay. He wrapped her in his arms, bringing her close to his body, feeling her warmth seep into his bones. His heart ached in longing.

  
Finally he broke away, and let her body slide away from his. He touched a hand to her cheek, caressing it softly. She leaned into it, and closed her eyes, not wanting the moment to end. But it did, and he stepped away reluctantly, heading towards the door.

  
“Come back to me,” she blurted, and he turned around, his heart bursting with hope and love. She smiled at him softly, and gripped the locket tightly in her hand before speaking again. “I shall wait for you- always”.

  
A faint smile crossed his face and he nodded, before walking out into the jungle.


End file.
